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Welcome to the Starr Foundation

C. V. Starr, Founder

The Starr Foundation was established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander Starr, an insurance entrepreneur who founded C.V. Starr & Co. and other companies later combined by his successor, Maurice R. Greenberg into what became the American International Group, Inc. Mr. Starr, a pioneer of globalization, set up his first insurance venture in Shanghai in 1919.

Mr. Starr died in 1968 at the age of 76, leaving his estate to the Foundation. The Foundation currently has assets of approximately $1.5 billion, making it one of the largest private foundations in the United States.

The Foundation makes grants in a number of areas, including education, medicine and healthcare, human needs, public policy, culture and the environment.